


Grounded

by spuffyduds



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: 1000-3000 words, Episode Tag, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-16
Updated: 2010-01-16
Packaged: 2017-10-06 08:41:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/51773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spuffyduds/pseuds/spuffyduds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Takes place just after "Before I Sleep."</p>
    </blockquote>





	Grounded

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place just after "Before I Sleep."

"Is this animal or vegetable?" Rodney says, poking at the sausage-patty-shaped thing on his breakfast plate. "I don't think I can entirely rule out mineral. I think it's possible that this is _gravel_-based, are you eating your roll? Can I have it?"

"Sure," John says, and hands it over. "Why don't you ask the kitchen guys what it is?"

"They got a restraining order. Sort of. The chief cook told Elizabeth they'd post signs when something contained an allergen, but if I asked the staff any more questions they were allowed to spit in my food."

"He did _not_ say that," John says.

"He said that," Radek chips in, nodding very fast.

"What's with you, anyway, McKay?" John says. "You're twitchy. Er."

"Ha. Very amusing. I didn't sleep well. Or, at all."

"Why not?" John says, and looks Rodney over, because they need Rodney at full brainpower; if he's getting sick John will need to strongarm him over to Carson's. He just looks tired, though.

"Well," Rodney says, "it may have escaped your attention? But yesterday, I _died_. And, you know, it probably seems strange to you in your manly military manhood, but I'm having a little trouble just _shrugging that off_."

"C'mon, Rodney. That wasn't you. Or, it wasn't _this_ you. And--we _all_ died. Other us-es. Except Teyla, I guess, because..." and John falls silent, because that first time around they hadn't _met_ Teyla, which he's just now realizing means...he and Teyla hadn't found the necklace that called the Wraith. So, by setting up the do-over, Elizabeth had actually--gotten a lot of Athosians _killed_. Which she is probably guilt-ridden about, except she shouldn't be because--

"Yes, yes, it's not _this_ Elizabeth," Rodney says, making little "get on with it" circles with one hand while he stirs his coffee with the other, because now he's apparently hitching rides on John's train of thought. They have _definitely_ been spending too much time together. "And I was the _first_ one who died, it was a total surprise, the rest of you at least had--foreshadowing or backshadowing, or alternashadowing, and yes, time loops give even _me_ a headache, can we drop this?"

"Sure," John says, and Radek says, "_Please_, yes," and Rodney glares at them both and then gets back in line for seconds on the mystery sausage patty.

*********************************************************************************

John doesn't see Rodney the rest of that day, and when he goes by the lab to check on him the next morning Rodney looks like shit. Gray under the eyes, and even twitchier. Er.

"Still not sleeping?" John says, parks himself on a lab table.

"Your powers of perception are amazing as always, Major, and--God, don't sit _there_, you'll knock things over and blow up the entire city with your _ass_. No, I'm not sleeping," and he glances around quickly, lowers his voice, says, "It's the drowning. I hate drowning."

"You have," John says, tries to think how to put this nicely, "you have--issues--with water?"

"No, no, I always liked swimming. But I never drowned before."

"You haven't drowned now! You weren't _there_!"

"Well, excuse me for having an imagination. Could you deal with your afterlife your way and let me deal with mine?"

"Fine," John says wearily, and heads off for weapons practice.

*****************************************************************************

The next morning John's barely stepped into the lab before Rodney's snarling, "Do. Not. Ask," and John puts up his hands, _easy, there_, and backs out of the lab slowly, because Rodney looks about one more sleepless night away from staggering around moaning "Eeeaaaaaat braaaaaaiiiiiins."

John's mulling it over all day, through a long "where should we explore next" meeting with Elizabeth, through a lunch he doesn't even taste, through a puddlejumper inspection. Even through an attempt to stop worrying about it by teaching one of the Marines to play handball, which doesn't really work as a game _or_ as a distraction, because they can't find a room anywhere without at least one funky angle or curve that unexpectedly sends the ball screaming right straight back at your forehead.

He can't stop thinking about Rodney, because they can't have the head of science having a psychotic break. Which is what will happen if he goes much longer without sleep. So John is going to have to rat him out to Carson or Elizabeth, get him sedated or something if they can't get him calmed down and sleeping any other way, and Rodney is not going to be happy with that. Not going to be happy with John, and that won't be good for the team.

He stops by the lab again that evening, to try to get him--talked down, something, but Rodney's not there. He's not in his quarters either, and it's a couple of hours before John finds him, just walking, in the most recently explored halls of Atlantis, where no one's living or working yet.

John falls into step and walks with him for a while, silently, stealing enough sideways glances to verify that Rodney still looks terrible.

"You wanna talk?" he says, finally.

"No. No, I do not want to talk. I want to sleep. I want to lie down and just fall asleep and not have, have these--" Rodney stops walking and flails both hands wildly, and usually John is pretty good with the flail interpretation but this time he's got no idea, it just looks like he's molesting a squid.

"These _what_?" John says. "What is going on? It's not just a sudden drowning phobia, come on, _what_?"

"Did you ever," Rodney says, "in high school. Did you ever have to read this story--" and he starts walking again but he's wobbly, dragging, and John's having to struggle not to just grab him and help him stay upright, but that might stop him talking. "There was a guy who was about to get killed, I forget how, but he escaped. And many very annoying pages of adventures later you find out that everything was a lie, that he actually did die and the whole rest of the story was his hallucination, that last second."

"Yeah," John says. "I read that."

"I can keep from thinking about it during the day," Rodney says. "I can manage. But I lie down, and I start to drift off, and I think, 'What if that first time, the first time we came through the gate--what if that was the only real time? What if—-you, all this, is me making this up, giving myself a better ending because I'm _dying_, I'm drowning?' And then I'm awake, I'm really awake, my pulse is spiking through the roof and I can't calm down and I...can't...sleep. I'm _afraid_ to go to sleep, I'm afraid to get any drugs or _help_ going to sleep because that might, that could be the end of the story."

"Jesus," John says. "Rodney. You're _here_. I swear you're here."

"Yeah, well, that's just what I'd have you say, isn't it?" Rodney says, and how do you argue with _that_?

They walk for hours, and circle back to the lab in the early morning.

"Don't work on anything important today, okay?" John says.

"Everything's important," Rodney says, and staggers to his computer.

******************************************************************************************

If John doesn't come up with a solution fast he's going to _have_ to tell Carson, and if Rodney won't consent to drugs they'll have to--shoot him with a trank gun, or something. John is not looking forward to that.

So he tells Teyla all about it, because, yeah, Rodney didn't really seem to want to share it with anyone else but he never actually _said_ John couldn't tell people, and maybe she knows some sort of Traditional Athosian Herbal Treatment for convincing people they're not hallucinating.

She doesn't. But she listens and hmmms and throws out ideas, says, "Even at the best of times Rodney lives...very much in his head and not in his body."

"Cerebral, yeah," John says.

"Perhaps...something that would be all feeling and moving and not thinking, something that would exhaust him, would ground him in his body, in reality?"

"Huh," John says. "Maybe...do you know where there are any..."

"Well, of course there are many options on Atlantis--martial arts and dances and a running club. But—--Rodney has not shown any liking for any of these," Teyla says, and John bites his tongue and sends up a silent prayer of thanks to whoever, because he'd been _thisclose_ to asking Teyla if she knew of a gate-accessible Planet of Space Hookers. And she probably would have smiled patiently at him and then ruptured his spleen the next time they sparred.

"No," he says, "I don't think exercise is our answer."

"Hmmm. But something physical, something he can touch." She frowns, says, "Did he not share his home with a small predator, on Earth?"

"A--oh, a cat, right."

"Sometimes a similar sort of companion helps our children to sleep. We could trade for a few."

"I don't see myself going to Elizabeth and making a pitch for Tribbles," John says.

"For--"

"Never mind. Thanks anyway."

*********************************************************************************************

He's got to take one last shot at fixing this, before he turns it over to the medical team. Because he's pretty sure at this point that Rodney would fight any attempt at sedation, would be freaked and terrified and screaming, and John just. Can't watch that.

He goes to the lab. All the junior scientists are hunched over their tables looking even more frightened than usual, because for once Rodney _isn't_ bellowing at them--he's just sitting in front of his computer, not looking at it; staring at the wall.

John grabs him by the upper arm and hauls him up. "C'mon," he says.

"Whah?" Rodney says but can't manage more of an argument than that, just lets John half-drag him back toward the living quarters. John's debating whose place to go to, and decides on his own, because at least Rodney won't have a history there, of trying to sleep and failing.

He closes the door, dims the lights and dumps Rodney onto his bed, shoves his feet up onto the bed too, shoes and all. Then nudges Rodney over and sits next to him, knees bent up under his chin.

"What," Rodney says, slow and slurry, "the fuck are you doing?"

"C'mere," John says, grabs Rodney's hand and wraps it around his own ankle. "I'm here, you're here, go to sleep."

Even in the low light John can see Rodney's bloodshot eyes roll. "Look, much as I appreciate your attempt to be some sort of--philosophical _teddy bear_\--"

"Shut up and go to sleep."

Rodney sighs, says, "Fine, watch, it won't work," but actually stays quiet after that. His breathing slows down and gets steadier, his eyes flutter shut, and John lets himself be hopeful for a couple of minutes, but then--

Rodney's whole body jerks, he sucks in a wheezing gasp, his hand on John's ankle going rigid and tight and his other hand flailing out, smacking the wall.

"Same thing?" John says softly.

"Same thing, _God_. I just need, I just _can't_," Rodney says.

And his voice is so wobbly, so exhausted and frightened and sad, that John thinks, _right, taking one for the team_, leans over and kisses him. Because he's hoping Rodney will say, "Good God, you're right, this must be real because I never would have made THAT up as a happy ending, get OFF me."

But what happens is that Rodney makes a small surprised noise against his mouth and then--and then _opens_ his, throws his arms up around John's shoulders and kisses back, clumsy with tiredness but wet and enthusiastic and _into_ it.

And that. That feels so good that maybe it's what John was really hoping for.

He kisses Rodney for a long time, and runs his hands firmly over him; nothing too personal, wide-awake and horny is not what Rodney needs right now. Just long strokes up and down his arms and legs, murmuring into his mouth, "You're here, I'm here, we're _right here_."

"Yes, yes," Rodney whispers back, finally, "I get it, you can stop repeating yourself, it's extremely annoying and..."

He trails off, and when John pulls back to look at him he's fallen asleep between words.

 

\--END--


End file.
